so ive been putting together a go-kit style setup for some ARES activations we have coming up and i keep going back and forth on the power question. right now i have a 100ah lifepo4 and a 30w solar panel but the event coordinator is talking about running things for potentially 18+ hours straight including an HF station, a crossband repeater setup, and some VHF packet. i dont think the battery alone cuts it for that kind of runtime especially if its cloudy.

the option on the table is someone in the group has a Honda EU2200i they're willing to bring but ive never really run my rigs directly off a generator and im a little nervous about it. heard some people say the inverter generators are clean enough but i also heard you want to condition the power before it hits anything sensitive. running a rigrunner off it with a good inline filter should be fine right? or do i need something more between the genny and the equipment.

also the antenna situation - we're deploying at a pretty exposed hilltop site, thinking a linked dipole for HF and an arrow yagi for the VHF/UHF satellite passes that one guy wants to do. anybody run a similar combo at a field site and have thoughts on mast height vs guy wire setup for wind? last time we did something like this the mast went over in about 20mph gusts and that was embarrassing

the EU2200i is actually pretty clean, honda did a good job with the inverter side of it. ive run my IC-7300 directly off one with just a West Mountain RigRunner in between and never had any noise issues, no weird birdies, nothing. that said i do keep a good quality DC power cable with ferrites on it just out of habit. if you're really worried you can throw a battery in the circuit and charge it with the genny - the battery acts as a big filter essentially and you get the runtime benefit too. thats actually what i do for marathon events, run the genny to a smart charger keeping the lifepo4 topped off and pull from the battery. means if the genny has to cycle down or someone needs to refuel theres no interruption to the station.

on the mast thing - seriously dont underestimate guying at hilltop sites. i use a surplus fiberglass pushup mast and i guy it at two levels with paracord and tent stakes, three directions minimum. 20mph isnt even that bad honestly, ive had masts come down in less if the stakes were in soft ground. get yourself some of those big screw-in ground anchors, they're worth the few bucks and they pull out way easier than stakes when you're breaking down in the dark

yeah what he said about the battery buffer trick, thats basically standard practice for any serious portable op. i'll add - for an 18 hour deployment with that load you're probably looking at the genny running a decent chunk of the time anyway so might as well plan the fuel logistics. EU2200i gets maybe 3-4 hours per tank depending on load so figure out whos responsible for refueling and have a spare can on site. sounds obvious but ive seen that fumbled at actual activations.

linked dipole for HF at a hilltop should work great, honestly an inverted V off a single mast point is about as fast and reliable as it gets for field work. what bands are you targeting? if its mostly 40 and 80 for regional nets the links are easy to set up. one thing - keep your feedline away from the genny if you can, even clean inverter generators can put out some trash if the antenna is right on top of it